Cultural Histories of South Africa

Abstract The chapter covers a broad swathe of South African cultural histories but keeps the focus on the performative aspects of culture. It situates praise poetry as the key genre that operated with deep connective roots across a number of languages and dialects and interwoven histories of the southern African region. It argues for a more holistic understanding of how praise poetry worked at both a personal and wider social level and makes a case for understanding its diplomatic roles as a point of contact between societies that moved between stability and flux over a long period. It also moves the discussion into the contemporary era and shows its operation in apartheid and post-apartheid settings in South Africa. As a point of contrast, still focusing on performative genres, the chapter explores smaller sung genres with their roots in older forms. This cluster of genres is linked to music made by migrants, both men and women, who move for work or for adventure from their settled homes to more densely populated areas of South Africa. In some cases, such as the acapella song by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, migrant music has had a global reach, but it has links to the ongoing practice of migrants making song in order to make a world and speak out an identity for themselves in a hostile space. The chapter links three migrant genres and shows how some are shaped distinctively by women as well as by men.